


The Small and Secret Things

by The_Wavesinger



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (kind of), F/F, POV Third Person, gapfiller, tense changes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 22:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15959177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/pseuds/The_Wavesinger
Summary: A story of Arien (and, tangentially, of her lover): how she came to be bound to Arda, and how she became the Sun.(For TRSB, very very late. The art is by sirinstree.)





	The Small and Secret Things

**Author's Note:**

> The title, the first paragraph, and some of the phrasing of the second paragraph are from the Silm.
> 
> Thank you so much to the wonderful sirinstree, who is my artist, and put up with a _lot_ from me. The art is truly gorgeous, and I wish I could have done better justice to it.

 

 

_“In the beginning Eru, the One, who in the Elvish tongue is named Ilúvatar, made the Ainur of his thought; and they made a great Music before him. In this Music the World was begun; for Ilúvatar made visible the song of the Ainur, and they beheld it as a light in the darkness._

_And among the Ainur there were those especially who revelled in the light of the world, and wove themselves into the very heart of the light, until they, too, became made of light. And this light was of many forms, all woven by the Ainur: the cold fire of distant stars, the burnished explosions of far-away worlds being born, the scorching flame running beneath the Earth._

_And, most precious of all, and the one light that the Ainur were drawn to, but could not without the help of the Children of Ilúvatar become one with: the Secret Fire, the spark which lived, as a roaring warmth or a small spark inside every Elf and mortal and later Dwarf._

_Arien and Ilmarë were two amongst the Ainur who loved this light. Ilmarë was the handmaiden of Varda, and chief among the Maiar. She loved the stars and the distant secret places in the skies, and would disappear sometimes for centuries as mortals marked the passage of time into the deep far corner of Eä. Arien, though, was a lover of small and delicate lights. She nurtured the spark that grew within every living thing, and loved the glow of a golden flower or a firefly. She tended to the flowers in the garden of Vána that grew on the sap of Laurelin, and was one of Vána's devoted disciples._

_And this they both had in common: they loved the Children of Eru, but loved them from afar and with the love of someone beholding a fragile, beautiful thing that could shatter asunder with a single careless blow.”_

—The Tale of the Sun and the Stars

* * *

The darkness strikes sharply, and without warning.

It is not a physical darkness. Or rather, it is, but the physicality of it is not what touches she-who-is-named-Arien and has her crying out in the middle of the sudden, deep night, a hurt going deep into her soul like a sword slicing through her.

She knows, already, even as she hears the panicked whispers of the Children growing into screams and babbling as a far-distant, muffled noise. She knows.

Laurelin and Telperion are dead.

 

***

 

Arien was late in learning to take her physical form.

She loved the deep spaces of the earth, and loved all the smallest things and the warm-glowing embers of life, and her discorporeal form mingled with the fires that yet lay dormant within the world.

It was Melkor, strangely enough, whose actions forced her into a body.

He still wandered Arda, then, but within the confines of the spread of his darkness, for he feared Tulkas, he of the bright spirit new-come to Arda. And the Valar and the Maiar rested in Almaren and enjoyed what they had fastened with their own hands.

But there were those, such as Arien, who loved the new blooming of the world, the unfolding of the Valar's plans into brightness and warmth. And though she loved the deep, brilliant light of the Lamps, she loved, too, the small sparks rising across the world, the blossoming of new life for which she had a special affinity, the dark places of the world and the light they cradled and held deep within themselves. And so she wandered further afield than most of her kind did, in those first peaceful days.

It was in these wanderings of Arda that Arien found a thread of darkness that should not be there.

She was not frightened then, for Melkor still had the pretence of being their brother though he fought against and corrupted everything they built, and the Ainur had yet no conception of corruption beyond that influenced by Melkor. Believing that no harm would come to her, she wandered across the lonely lands of Middle-earth, following the stench of rot.

A sudden bright light overwhelming her, a flash of light rending deep into her, and something was onto her, tearing her apart, wrapping her essence up in deep bands of red fire that made her fëa scream in agony.

This was the first Balrog, perhaps, one of the first at least, a demon of fire. But she did not know that. All she knew of was a deep burning flame inside her, searing her.

She struggled, but she had never learned war, and could not fight. It was only chance that had something inside her reaching out to grasp the fire, and she tugged and pulled and she was the fire and the fire was inside her. And she reached out and grasped the fire, and something came loose, until she tugged and tugged and received and became.

And still the fight raged, but now there was a sudden strange something burning inside her, and she could not grasp this world much longer. And—

The struggle was gone, suddenly. Maybe the Balrog went to heed a distant call of Melkor's, or maybe it was summoned by another master. Whatever happened, Arien found her fëa free, but with that twist of fire still burning inside.

 

***

 

There is no pain.

Death is pain, the Children said, but there is no pain even as part of her lies withered and dead by the hand of Melkor (for who else could do this, what else could happen). There is only numbness, a constraint, perhaps, of her physical form. Numbness, and a sheer, absolute darkness she has never become used to. Even the flames of the living things of Aman are flickering dim, and she can feel the fires of the world banking, dying down, in places, roaring high and angry in others, but always, always, far away and dull.

Her body is still rooted to this earth, still tied to the land, and yet—

And yet. There is a piece of her almost _notthere_ suddenly, reaching and reaching and reaching for a light that will never reach back, not now.

 

***

 

She could not stir herself after the attack. For a lifetime she drifted under the light of the stars, flying into the abyss, her body anchored to the world, to Arda, only by the twist of fire that remained inside her.

Time passed, and she did not know how long. And she did not care. She reached for the stars, and the stars reached back, and the nudge of discomfort from the flame Melkor’s plaything had embedded inside her was all that prevented her from escaping the confines of Eä, for she felt herself losing the link she had to Arda though she wished to go back to the place she once loved.

She could not—and she did not mind. She drifted, weightless, and the stars wheeled around her, and would have, forever more.

Would have, but did not. For a light reached out to her, in the darkness, the pinpoint of a star growing brighter and brighter until she was cocooned by it, and then a name whispered in her ear as her fëa was grounded and pulled into the light, until the drifting coalesced abruptly into tugging, and the Music called too loudly to ignore.

 

***

 

She cannot, will not, succumb to the darkness.

She can feel it howling, surrounding her with temptation almost too strong to resist. But the physicality of her body helps her now—her flesh remembers memories even from before its existence, and the red hot fire of her first enemy burns into her mind. The part of that fire still inside her sears, fighting the darkness for a reason she does not understand. The darkness, for its part, is cowardly; it retreats from her flame, cowed, weaker and fainter than before.

And so she falls back into the world, and Ilmarë is there to catch her.

 

***

 

Brightness.

She opens her eyes, and—

 _Eyes_?

Eyes. Eyes, such as the Children had. Eyes, such as those of the Maiar did who chose to assume physical form. Eyes, such as she was not supposed to have.

Eyes.

“Arien,” a voice said, and it was a voice, that her ears heard, “Arien. Please. We will explain, but you need to calm.”

“ _What_.” And there was sound coming out of her _throat_ , scratchy, tinny sound that grated on her ears, and she could hear herself speak, which was—

“I. Please. I cannot.”

“I know, I understand.” Gentle hands smoothed over her forehead ( _forehead_ ) and Arien could feel the brush of a fëa against hers, but it was frustrating and feather-light and so so far away. “But if you calm, we will explain.”

And she could do nothing else, for even though her thoughts were thrashing wildly, Arien found this body weak and unable to move even a slight distance in the direction she wanted it go, and never mind the dizzying spaces of the world, she would not be able to—

The brightness dimmed, and thoughts of her body faded into thoughts of her sight.

For everything was still bright and beautiful and strange and yet flat, and the chords of the Music were but echoes now, not pure notes.

And.

The fire was still inside her, burning, but golden-warm now, almost pleasant, strange but not, a part of her it felt like.

And next to her, smiling at her in a gentle, sad way, was an almost-familiar face, and she knew, _knew_ , who she was, knows who she was supposed to be. _Varda_. One of the great Valier, one of those who had far greater concerns than the Maiar did and who governed the very shape of Arda itself. Since departing from the abode of the One, Arien had met her not often at all.

But with her was another Arien knew but in passing, Ilmarë of the stars, who loved the far corners of Ea and came only to Arda, Arien had heard, when her duties demanded.

And yet she was here, by Arien's bedside, taking Arien’s hand in hers (ice-cold, the feeling sudden and new and strange and yet perfectly understandable and perfectly clear), and telling her what happened:

Ilmarë had found her drifting above Arda, lost in her own mind, the fire inside her somehow tying her to the world but not tight enough to hold her essence to the bounds of the world. And she had summoned Varda, and Varda had guided her essence to the great tower Ringol, where Ormal was, and filled her with some of the light of Ormal. And that light mingled enough with whatever was in her of the essence of Arda that she did not escape the bounds of Ea but was tied to Arda by a body. A physical body, not true flesh like the bodies of the Children but more solid and grounded than the bodies that the Ainur wore when they walked upon the earth.

“It will take great effort for you to escape this body if you wish to,” Ilmarë said, “and you may never be able to take physical form again, even in any kind of raiment, but you could, and I will help you. If you want.”

Arien did not know, and she did not wish to think on whether she wanted it or not. She was exhausted, bone-tired, in a way that was both different from and similar to the tiredness in fëa she had experienced before.

“I will think upon it,” she managed to mumble. And then, closing her eyes, for the first time in existence she went to sleep.

 

***

 

Tulkas gives chase to Melkor, and Yavanna goes to the Trees, Manwë and Varda and Ulmo and Mandos to gather together in council. The other Maiar disperse to their duties, but Arien has none. She finds her way to what she loves best: the golden flowers that fed on the sap of Laurelin.

The shock of loss still has not settled, and though she must have known the darkness once, long ago, her eyes and body and mind have not adjusted to the absence of Laurelin and Telperion yet. The limitations of this body are still a struggle, but she cannot, will not, falter, and picks her way carefully across treacherous ground.

When she reaches the gardens—

When she reaches the gardens, the flowers yet live. Of course they live—they have survived the Lamps and the rise and fall and rise again of the lands. And yet, their life is a welcome surprise in the gloom.

For the first time since the Trees were sucked of their light, Arien weeps.

 

***

 

Ilmarë was patient with her, more patient, perhaps, than was necessary. She bathed her and fed her (slowly, carefully, and with many mistakes, for this body was…strange in a way that Arien could not yet fully comprehend, wobbly and coltish and held to her fëa by the merest thread).

And, when day after day, she could not make a choice as to whether she needed to stay or go, Ilmarë did not express annoyance or anger or any other feeling that would have been excusable. Instead, she expressed sympathy and joy and shone, annoyingly (for Arien in her current state) with a kind of radiant beauty.

(That was another strange thing about this body, how responded to Ilmarë in a way that Arien had never experience before, as if it wanted to join to her. To take part in the couplings that were common among spouses and Arien had been told of. Bodies of flesh were strange, Arien had decided, for they had not spent the eons in close intimacy necessary to form such a bond. And so she let the inconvenience sink to the back of her mind.)

“It must be tiring,” Arien murmured instead of dwelling on the ever-present thoughts of _touch_ and _want_ or on her still-weak body, “To wait on me and my indecision.”

“It is not,” Ilmarë assured Arien, but Arien did not believe her.

Instead, she said: “Take me somewhere where there is green, if you could. One last thing, and then I swear I will decide.”

 

***

 

“Arien.” Someone crept upon her unwarned-for, and now the hand on Arien’s shoulder startles Arien, as dark as it still is.

But Arien knows Ilmarë, would know her deaf and blind and without touch or smell. And so she only turns her head so it presses against Ilmarë’s hand. “I thought you would have duties.”

“No. We watch, and wait, and let the Valar deal with Melkor. And Fëanor.”

 _Fëanor_. Spirit-bright and burning brilliant, that one, and Arien cannot imagine how he is to be dealt with, if at all. He has the power to challenge her, almost, and his fire frightens her in a way few things do.

But that is for the Great Ones to deal with. For her and Ilmarë, there are the small golden flowers that burn still.

When Arien voices this thought, Ilmarë kisses her, fiercely and desperately, as if the end of all of Arda is nigh. “The golden flowers are yours, dear one. And you live, and will still live while I walk this earth. As long as you live they will not die.”

 

***

 

The place Ilmarë took Arien to was a small and secretive grove, ringed with trees. Ilmarë lowered Arien to the ground, gentle as always, but it was not, for once, Ilmarë’s actions which caught Arien’s attentions. No, it was the ground upon which Ilmarë had placed her.

It looked rough. It should hurt. And yet it did not, the earth soft beneath her, a cushion to her aching limbs. And when she spread her fingers across the soil, she could hear the Music as she had not heard it for many long days, bright and clear and joyful.

She closed her eyes and wept, and her tears fell onto the soil beneath her, and onto Ilmarë’s hand where it had crept to capture hers, solid and warm and tingling as the raiment of the Ainur should not be.

 

***

 

They stay with the golden flowers, locked in each other’s embrace, for what feels like an eternity.

But the winds bear messages, now, in the absence of light, and the tiding they receive are ill. Ill, and dark, and a corruption that Arien can hear echoing mournfully through the Music.

She draws closer to Ilmarë. The dark is perilous enough on its own, but the echoes of disharmony in the very fabric of the world unsettles her, leaves her on edge. Her fëa is still jagged with the loss of the Trees, and to feel another bleeding wound to the world so near is almost too much. She leans into Ilmarë’s warmth, takes comfort from her lover’s presence.

Together, they make their way down to where the Valar await.

 

***

 

Ilmarë’s gasp was what stemmed her tears, eventually. That, and the cry of “Arien, look!” that came from her mouth.

Arien opened her eyes slowly. Her eyelashes were still clumped together by tears (and tears, that was the strangest part of weeping, the water her eyes exuded like a small, trickling fall) and her vision still blurry.

But even through misted eyes she could see the golden flowers growing under her fingers, flowers that had not been there. Golden and delicate and beautifully shaped, their colour the pure light of Ormal and their form as elegant as if Yavanna had crafted each petal herself. They swum in golden light, a pool that melted into a string that stretched across the land to Ormal itself. And beneath Arien’s hands the flowers were soft and smooth to the touch, and sang with a beauty that she had never heard the likes of on Arda before. And she knew, deep inside her, that if she forsook this form then she forsook this beauty with it.

Suddenly, her choice was the easiest choice that could be made. “I will stay in this body,” she said.

Beneath her fingers, golden light sang.

 

***

 

What comes after they leave the gardens Arien will later never be able to explain. It is a dizzying whirlwind and the inexorable march of the Music towards its own ending both, and Arien is aware of this in every moment even as she stands on the sidelines of great deliberations and hears what is happening.

A great abomination, the sons of Finwe setting sword to kin and slaying them, Fëanor gone mad with grief and Silmaril-lust, Finarfin turning back but the others marching still, and the Doom, the Doom that Arien cannot grasp, cannot feel. She is not of the Children and yet understands what it means to inhabit a body of their flesh, and so she stands apart from the other Ainur as they deliberate.

And deliberate, and deliberate, and deliberate.

For aside from Fëanor, there is one other question: what of the world, what is to give light to it?

Fëanor, and the debates on fate and guidance and the One’s will Arien cannot understand. But in the other, she can hear echoes of another long-ago debate, and both dreads and longs for what she knows is to come.

 

***

 

She made the choice, and her body seemed to have made the choice with her. It recovered in leaps and bounds until she could almost stand, and then until she could stand, and walk, and run.

And run!

Running was a joy she had never felt before, but now she loved how the ground pounded beneath her feet and the cold wind nipped at her, loved the stars wheeling above her as she ran and ran and _felt_ her body run.

The stars wheeling above them, rather.

For Ilmarë ran with her. Ran with her, and wandered across the earth where she went, and watched the sea when she did.

Arien did not understand—Ilmarë was of the stars, and she would have, she thought, gone back to the stars as soon as she could, as soon as the burden of caring for Arien was lifted. And yet she still stayed with her, and did not leave, and selfishly, Arien did not ask her to.

 

***

 

Arien loves the _idea_ of the Children more than she loves the Children themselves. She would give a lot for them, but she does not claim to know their minds or pass judgement upon their souls.

And yet—

And yet Fëanor cuts deep in a place she never knew existed in herself.

First not at all, except in horror as they receive the tidings of his deeds, of his murder of the Teleri and the scores of deaths he has given by his own hand and the hands of his followers.

Then, she is angry at him, and angry at the Valar for failing to see, to understand. Understand what she cannot quite explain, but it is there, a grasping anger, against Fëanor and the Valar and the world.

She tries to explain this to Ilmarë, and the words will not come. There may, Arien thinks, never be words. For in being too much in the body of the Children and yet far apart from their society, she has become, in part, one of them herself.

(That is what the rumours she listens to speak of, at least. And since those who start the rumours generally know more of the metaphysical and of the will of the One and the working of the world than she does, she listens, and believes them.)

This is, perhaps, why she stays away from the new lights many of the Ainur are constructing. She watches from the distance. The pull of the last fruit of Laurelin, and fainter, of the last flower of Telperion is strong, but she resists it. Tries to resist it, tries not to succumb.

She knows what her role is, and because of who she was made into, she knows, too, that she will do it.

And yet she does not want to leave Ilmarë.

 

***

 

They came to know each other quickly yet slowly. A forever in the eyes of the Children-to-come, and yet a day in the eyes of the Ainur, short and long all at once.

Too soon, perhaps, they made the choice. Far too soon, some would—some did—say. And yet it seemed right at the time.

They were in the gardens that Arien loved, where her gold flowers grew and which Vána had begun to look over and care for. Arien’s head was in Ilmarë’s lap, and her fingers were tangled in Ilmarë’s, a pose they often adopted, now, for they were familiar with each other’s bodies and knew each other well enough to know when intimacy was welcome and when it was not.

And then—

Then Ilmarë leaned down and brushed her lips against Arien’s, and with the brush of her lips her fëa nudged against Arien’s.

And that was it. In that moment, she knew. She knew, and _she_ became _they_.

(For so the couplings of the Ainur occurred. A spouse, once chosen, was immediate and forever. This, too, the Ainur did not understand the Children in, Arien would find later. But now, to her, this was all the choice she needed, and everything she wanted. Ilmarë was warm against her, and gentle with her, and she knew Ilmarë as well as she knew her own self, now.)

 

***

 

It is a small thing that tips the balance for Arien, the smallest of things: a word wafted on wind.

A muttered prayer of words too hopeful and yet full of grief for her to repeat, heard as she walks through Tirion. A wish for a daughter to come home, to be safe facing the dangers of Middle-earth.

And then—

Then a memory, of the darkness in which Melkor dwelt, before the felling of the Lamps, how he lurked and fed on the absence of light even as he craved its brilliance for himself.

She tells Ilmarë of this later, but she cannot form the words for the thoughts drifting through her head of Middle-earth.

She is not sure that she wants to hear her thoughts herself, even if the words do come.

 

***

 

They spent eons idling together, drifting hand in hand and exploring each other’s bodies, Arda their playground and their garden, and yet it was not enough. It was not an eternity.

For Melkor’s forces had grown even more since when his minion had attacked Arien, and the Valar had not known it. And so it came to be that Ormal and Illuin were destroyed, and darkness descended upon the land.

That darkness struck Arien hard, and Ilmarë with her. For they were both creatures of the light, and felt deeply the shift in the world which Melkor’s abominable acts caused.

At least they were together when the Lamps were struck down, and so they could cling to each other until the worst of the darkness passed, until the blinding absence of light became, if not familiar, then at least bearable.

And there, too, were Arien’s flowers.

Ilmarë and Arien were by them when the Lamps were struck down and the earth shook with the wrath of the Valar. And the little flowers, though their pool of light lessened into nothing, did not wilt entirely. Fade they did, but their glow and warmth was still there, a beacon in the darkness.

And so they came through the dark, the two of them together.

Then Yavanna asked of Arien what Arien could not in good conscience refuse, and what she did not want to refuse.

In this way was the course of the future written.

 

***

 

Both of them know, already, what will happen, what Arien’s choice is going to be. They do not speak of it, in some unwritten rule. Instead, Ilmarë strips Arien gently, worshipfully, and right there in a bed of Arien’s golden flowers, illuminated in a bed of the last light left in all of Aman, they make love as if the world will end tomorrow.

Kisses, and bites, and teeth nipping and tongues swirling and fingers tickling, and everything they know, everything they have mapped out, about each other is poured into that night. Ilmarë kisses every inch of Arien's skin. Arien, for her part, touches. Touches everywhere she can reach, mapping the planes of Ilmarë's body and the shape of its existence, trying to commit to memory every ridge and bump and contortion.

Then, still cocooned by the mellow radiance of the flowers, they sleep, entwined in each other, in the slumber of those who are exhausted by the world.

 

***

 

“I am already tied to this world. One more bond will not matter.”

“Arien,” Ilmarë said, “think upon this carefully. If you do this, the Trees will be tethered to you—”

“—and I to the Trees,” Arien finished. “I know, Ilmarë. But this is my choice. And it will not be at all a bad thing. After all, I am made up of all parts of Arda now. One more part will not hurt.”

Ilmarë kissed Arien lightly. “Call me selfish, but I do not wish you to get hurt.”

“This is something I must do,” Arien murmured. “Allow me this choice, Ilmarë. The light Varda gave me, the light from Ormal, is mine to keep or use as I wish.”

“I know.” Ilmarë took Arien’s hands in hers, and even after all this time that feeling thrilled Arien. “I know. I simply worry for you.”

“You do not need to.” But Arien smiled as she said this. “No harm will come to me, I promise.”

“I know.”

They sat with the light of the Trees washing over their back, watching the far-away edge of the earth.

All was well in the world, and Aman was at peace.

 

***

 

When they wake up, there is one more conversation, a conversation that will not be recorded in any annal:

“The light Varda gave you was yours to take,” Ilmarë says, “and you tying it to the Trees did not make it any less yours, only made you more theirs. And then you lived in their shade for all their life, and Laurelin especially you tended to and loved.”

“I know,” Arien says quietly, because she does know. She watched every step of the labours, and she knows exactly what will be asked of her. And when her time comes, she will be willing. With only one regret.

But Ilmarë is still speaking.

“It is yours, though, Arien, and they still have the fruit. It should be enough, it will be enough. You do not need to take that light from within you and give it to them. It will,” Ilmarë falters, for a moment, then gathers her thoughts, “it will be more difficult, without that, I think, but My Lady Varda would not wish to hurt you and destroy who you are.”

And oh. Oh. Ilmarë does not understand at all. Or she does, and pretends not to.

She is still speaking, but Arien interrupts her. “That—that is not what I meant, Ilmarë. That will not be what I am called to do.”

Ilmarë presses her lips together, looks away. “You need to do nothing, Arien.”

She knows that. But she cannot. She loves the Children, loves this world they made for the Children, too much not to. “I have to.”

Ilmarë does not speak, for what is there to say? There is nothing they can put to words that the feather-light touch of Ilmarë's fëa against her own joined _bodysoul_ will not. She only takes Arien's hand in hers and kisses her, as they did so long ago in this very place. The touch is still as sweet as it was then, the weight and feel of her corporeal body just as pleasant, but Arien can still taste their mingled tears on her lips.

When the kiss is finally broken, they rise as one.

Together, they stride out to make the Sun rise.


End file.
